In March, I spent ten days in Europe with students and colleagues from West Virginia University. Officially, two WVU Art History Professors (Janet Snyder and Rhonda Reymond) were conducting GPS: France courses and WVU Photography Professor Michael Sherwin and I were along to help and do some research into our own potential study abroad courses.

On Thursday, March 9th we went to Antwerp! We LOVE Antwerp! This was an unexpected stop that was strongly encouraged by Frans Masereel Shop Manager Ivan Durt, and we were so glad that we went.

The INSIDE of the Antwerp train station, we were told this was voted the second most beautiful train station in Europe, which made us wonder what the most beautiful train station in Europe looks like…

And the outside of the train station…did I mention how beautiful this was?

This was such a great museum! The entire complex told the story of how information and imagery was printed, focusing on 16th century printers Christophe Plantin and Jan Moretus…the museum is housed inside the former printshop and went into detail about the business, social, and technical aspects of being a publisher…it was incredibly informative and incredibly fun to see…above we see a line up of some original presses in absolutely gorgeous condition!

Press with movable type set up for printing…

More presses…

The grounds were absolutely beautiful as well…

There were lots of old prints to look too…Christophe Plantin and Jan Moretus printed many things, but some of my favorite were the old maps and atlases…on the map above you can see how unsure the Western World was of North America…the northern part of the continent just kind of fades away…

Crazy medical engravings…

EVERY book should have a title page as beautiful as this…we were all so glad we made the special day trip to see this museum and the wonderful town of Antwerp!